How does Google Trends work and how to read it?
Get to know Google Trends. A free tool that shows what people around the world are searching for, when they search and where.
Do you work in online promotion? Do you want to know when it is best to advertise your product? Or maybe you want to see how popular a given keyword is? Get to know Google Trends.
A note up front: this post comes from 07.08.2022. It got lost in my Wordpress drafts and I am digging it out.
Google Trends is a free tool that lets you analyse the keywords people search for. With it we can measure the level of interest in a given topic or product over a chosen period and in a chosen place.
How does Google Trends work?
The data in Google Trends is shown on a clear chart on a scale from 0 to 100. The number 100 means that in the given period people typed the searched phrase into the search engine most often. The other days are marked in proportion to the highest result. Let us look at a few examples.
Examples
In the image below you can see that the word grill is typed in most often in May. For most of us the May long weekend is probably the strongest association with the start of the barbecue season. 🙂
The keyword grill in Google Trends
Let us check another word. It will be war. As we can guess, for the word war the peak of popularity falls between 20 and 26 February…
The keyword war in Google Trends
In Google Trends we can pick several time ranges for the phrase we search for. Below I took a screenshot that shows the available options.
Time ranges in Google Trends
Let us use this feature and try to narrow the time range for our word. We will analyse the last 30 days for the phrase grill.
The keyword Grill in the last 30 days
Notice that in most of these periods the word gains popularity exactly at weekends. No surprise, since most people allow themselves this “form of activity” after work. The exception this year was the last rainy weekend of July. As you can see, several factors can drive the popularity of a phrase. In this example the first ones that stand out are the day of the week and the weather.
Let us check another word. Let us think about when gifts for mums are searched for the most. I can already hear the answers… Mother’s Day, of course. 🙂 Let us see what Google Trends shows us:
The keyword gift for mum in Google Trends
As you can see, the highest popularity for this phrase falls before Christmas. 🤔 Either way, there is no doubt that Christmas and Mother’s Day are the two most sought after periods. These are just a few quick examples to help us understand the idea behind this tool.
Special characters
Let us also try another combination of typed phrases. We will use the special characters known from Google search:
- “smart home” — the search will cover exactly the phrase smart home
- smart + home — results may contain phrases such as smart OR home
- smart - home — the tool will show the word smart WITHOUT home
It is worth testing this yourself and seeing what results you get. Quite different, right? 🤓
Searching by category
Besides searching by time period, Google Trends also lets you search by category. Words will then be searched in that context.
Searching by category in Google Trends
Related topics and queries
Besides searching by period and category, Google Trends also shows us related topics and related queries connected with the searched word or phrase. So if we want to know what else is searched together with a given phrase, Trends will show us that.
Related topics, related queries in Google Trends
Google Trends is not only the Google search engine
Google Trends lets you analyse phrases not only in Google search, but also in its other services. We have image search, news, Google Shopping and YouTube available.
Search engines in Google Trends
What can you use Google Trends for?
- Checking the seasonality of a phrase, product or service — Google Trends can help you plan a marketing plan. So that you fit your offer in at the best moment to win a client and make a sale. Watching trends lets you estimate better whether demand for a given product or service in a given period will rise 📈 or fall 📉. That way you can manage your marketing budget better.
- Checking the popularity of a phrase — many factors can affect the popularity of a phrase: the hour, the day of the week, fashion, region, country. As for those last two examples, we can check where a given phrase is most popular. Let us look at an obvious example for the word oscypek (a Polish smoked sheep cheese). Probably somewhere around Zakopane.
The keyword oscypek in Google Trends
- Real Time Marketing — marketing in real time. Google Trends helps you check what is current right now and what people are talking about. This strategy can help you create interesting campaigns that refer to current events. There is also a special subpage that shows the most popular phrases. You will find it in the site menu.
Most popular searches — menu
Below is an example of such a summary:
Daily search trends - 06 August 2022
- Keyword popularity — the charts will show which of the phrases is more popular.
Keyword popularity in Google Trends
With the help of the Google Ads keyword planner we can match our content to the phrases people search for.
Keyword planner
- Checking the competition — we can check how popular our product or service is compared with the competition.
- Drop in popularity — Google Trends will show us whether there is any interest at all in a given product, service or topic. We can easily verify a drop in sales or in traffic on a site.
The keyword iPhone 5 in Google Trends
To sum up
Google Trends is a great tool for analysing products and services. I use it happily in my work. It gives you a lot of options when planning marketing and sales. I recommend testing it.
Google Trends course
For anyone interested in learning more about this tool, Google offers a free course. It is worth taking part in it to get to know the tool better.
https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com/training/course/google-trends